I'm too plain and matter-of-fact by half, and, though I often hear mysterious taps on the panels of my bedroom, I prosaically set it down to rats and mice.

Now, you're a psychic sort of a fellow, the seventh son of a seventh son; if he wants to make himself visible, perhaps you may get a sight of him; I'm afraid it's more than ever I shall.' "'Is there no clew at all left as to the hiding-place of the treasure ?' I inquired.
"'Only an old rhyme so obscure as to be quite unintelligible: He who plucks a rose at Yule Will bring back luck to Dacrepool.
Even you, with your fondness for antiquities and rummaging strange things out of old books, can scarcely make anything of that, I should say.' "I shook my head, for the riddle seemed quite unreadable, and as we had already sat up until long past midnight I begged for my candle, and proposed to defer our conversation until the morning.

Jack, declaring that none of the beds in the damp old house was fit to sleep in without a week of previous airing, insisted upon giving up his room to me, and passing the night himself on the dining-room sofa, and, in spite of my protestations, I was forced to acquiesce in his plans for my comfort.
"Left alone, I looked with some curiosity round the gloomy oak-paneled chamber, where the fire-light flashed on the carved four-poster, with its faded yellow damask curtains, and lit up the moth-eaten tapestry that adorned a portion of the upper part of the walls, but scarcely illumined the dark corners which lay beyond.

There were quaint old presses and chests roomy enough to hide a dozen ghosts in, and a portrait of a gentleman in the elaborate costume of the Stuart period seemed to look down upon me with strangely haunting eyes.
"'A spooky enough place,' I murmured, 'hallowed by the spirits of numerous generations, no doubt.
Well, I'll undertake they won't disturb me to-night, for I am dog-tired and mean to sleep like a log.' "I am an old traveler, and was soon in bed and enjoying a well-earned slumber, but my dreams were wild, for I seemed now to be driving furiously over the moorland, pursuing ever the phantom of pretty Bessie, who, with her bewitching smile, was luring me into the fog and darkness, and now to be barring the front door to defend her from some unknown assailant, whose perpetual rapping rang like an echo through my brain.

With the impotent strength of dreamland I struggled vainly to close the door, which was opening slowly to admit the nameless horror.